I,Eywa
by Nyah
Summary: He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls?" What happened to Jake Sully's body after he joined the People for good?


**Disclaimers:** Avatar, all recognizable characters/settings/situations are the property of James Cameron and whole bunch a of creative minds who are not me.  
**Rating:** G  
**Timeline:** Unspecified amount of time after the film  
**Note:** A bit vague perhaps but I think it comes together in the end.

_They will come back, come back again,_

_As long as the red Earth rolls._

_He never wasted a leaf or a tree._

_Do you think He would squander souls?_

_-Kipling_

**I, Eywa**

As often happens on a first hunt, the young one is caught away from the group. Whether he was left by design or separated by his own actions, rash and timid by turns, is not for this moment's consideration. So the question flickers only on the edge of his mind. Too far to see clearly.

In this moment the light is fading. It falls from the sky in a trickle, shifting into ever darker patterns with the canopy. The young one watches the shadows warily, wondering which of the spaces between the patches of light will be the first to grow into something with claws and teeth. He shakes his head. Now is not yet the time of darkness. Not yet night. He must not try to see things before their time.

He looks at the shadows for what they are now. Friendly. Guides. The darkest shadows mean the thickest canopy. The thickest canopy means the most trees. The most trees means water.

He climbs and he runs. It's the thickest branches for him now. Alone, he cannot afford to test the lightness of his feet. He knows they are heavy yet, so each step must be sure. Tree to tree he moves. The breeze pushes him back gently. A good sign. It is damp, rushing from the water to fill the space left by warmer air rising from dryer ground. It comes to him from the water.

Heart rising with the strength of the breeze, he leaps into the wind. Fingers sink deep into lush blankets of moss and his feet crush the pungent buds of moss flowers, closed now for dusk. Hands grip, tail balances, all without thought. He runs, a hunter now surely. Hunting the water. Hunting the light.

Like an Ikran rider, he comes at the light from above, soaring above it on wings that were arms in the moment before this one. He dives toward the light, toward its endless, shimmering welcome. He sees a warrior diving toward him, graceful and fierce. A warrior surrounded by light.

Closer.

Closer.

Smack!

His face, turned as it was to watch his own reflection, greets the water with a harsh slap. He plunges deep into the still water and then ascends, skin tingling painfully, limbs and tail wrenched by the force of impact. He had not seen a warrior. He had not seen truly.

The water's slap lingers on his skin like a warning and he paddles quickly to the stalks of an aquatic plant. Here was the true light, blooming from the spores of the plant. In the daytime was the light that gave life and in the night was the light that lived. It was a gift from Eywa. Like the water. Having received the two gifts, the young one can live.

He pulls himself out of the water, grateful for the first time to be alone. Grateful his folly has not been witnessed. Many creatures enjoy the gifts of Eywa and he might easily have become a gift to one of those that lives in the depths. A gift that is used up, its borrowed energy returned.

Great leaves bend from the upper half of the plant's stalks, leaning out to form troughs where water might collect in shallow pools. The pools reflect the living light, shining with soft, green glows. He tastes the water in a trough and finds it bitter with the plant's juices. It makes his lips tingle if he presses them together. It has a strong smell, sharp and acrid. He climbs into the trough, knowing the scent will guard him from shadows with teeth and claws.

When he wakes he is sure he is home but his skin is tingling all over and he is still bathed in living light. It is not yet the moment for waking but he is awake.

Still, the trough, stinging and sharp-smelling, feels like home. Not like the meager camp from the time after battle but like Hometree. Perhaps he is mistaken. The moments of Hometree are far away now. He cannot see them except in dreams. Perhaps home has come to him.

He climbs out of his trough, wet fingers that are raw and stinging slide on the leaf. The young one peers beyond the edge of the leaf. There are only the plants and the living light and on the edge of that, night. But in the next moment there is movement.

There. A dark shape on a broad leaf that sits on the water's surface. The shape uncurls, round to tall. But not so tall. Another young one perhaps. Strange, he'd been sure he'd find his father here. His mother.

"You must come down from there," the new young one says in a voice like a man. And like a woman. And like the young one's own self. Like all the selves he had been before because in Eywa, all moments are this moment.

"Eywa," the young one says. "I see you." And then he remembered the times that were before, the times that are now, all the times he saw Eywa. "Is it finished already?" He asks, not sad to go with Eywa, never that. But surprised. "It has been so short. I have not flown. I have no place among the People and no name yet. Must I return it already?"

The young one's eyes drink their fill of the living light and he can see that Eywa's shape is not what he had thought it to be. Eywa is small like a young one but Eywa's skin is no-color skin, pale like the innermost bark of a tree. Eywa's eyes are dark and Eywa's fingers are too many. "It is not finished yet. Not this time," Eywa says warmly. "But you must come down from there. That water is not a gift." Eywa's mouth never moves to make space for the words. But they come anyway.

If the water was not a gift.... The young one dives into the pool once more, gracefully this time. His tingling skin cools at once and he swims in a swift arc toward the leaf pontoon where Eywa stands. Above the water the air is still damp and heavy so the moisture takes a long time to bead on his skin. And his skin is wrong. Too thin in places. Tiny blossoms of blood show near the surface. "I was the plant's food," the young one says, picking at strands of damp hair in disarray. "Why did you take me from it?"

Eywa does not grow angry nor ignore the question. Eywa is the Mother Goddess and mothers must always bear the questions of the young. "The plant has other food," Eywa replies calmly.

The young one drops his eyes a moment, not wanting to see or be seen. He lives because so many had died not so long ago and Eywa's greatest gift is balance. "I will not forget this lesson." He would not forget what stinging and sharp smells from a plant meant. He would not forget that many deaths might be the price of one life.

The young one meets Eywa's eyes again and realizes he is still looking down. "Eywa?" He ventures. "I see you, Eywa, but I also see the shape of the skyperson, Jake'Sully who now wears the shape of the People. Why do you wear this shape, Eywa?" The shape had been on the ground before the Tree of Souls. The People cheered when Jake'Sully rose in his true form. The young one cheered with them and he did not see what became of the skyperson.

Eywa smiles with the mouth that was Jake'Sully's. "The skywalker's brought many evil things when they came. Bodies that had been from their Mother's flesh, tortured and twisted into new shapes. Bodies that did not live and so could only deal death. But the skypeople themselves," Eywa held out a pale hand, its coloring evidence of its alieness, "they are the true children of a Mother Goddess. In me they have learned. Grace and Jake'Sully."

"I can hear Grace in your speech," the young one says excitedly. He is too proud, he knows, that he had been one of the last to attend Grace's school.

Eywa nodded Jake'Sully's head with its strange, short hair. "In him, I will learn."

The young one and Eywa sit on the leaf surrounded by the green glow of living light. They talk a while. In Eywa's voice, that in moments past had been Jake'Sully's, the young one can hear his mother and father and theirs before them. In Eywa's dark eyes he can see the warrior he will be with a true name of his own.

The moment the young one wakes is the same moment that the lights of night give way to the light of day. It is also the moment he is alone again. The hunting party is more distant now, separated by all the moments of night. It is hard for the young one to focus on it. But Eywa's eyes are near, only as distant as his last moment of sleep. In Eywa's eyes all things are near and all things are now.

The young one begins his search


End file.
